İmam bayıldı: Stuffed Eggplant cooked in Oil
"The Imam Fainted" or İmam bayıldı is one of the more famous dishes of classic Turkish cuisine. The ingredients are olive oil, small eggplants, onions, garlic, parsley, tomatoes, and more olive oil. I tried a recipe today from one of my Turkish cookbooks, to go with Turkish pide, a type of flat bread, that Len made. First, some photos of how I cooked the eggplant:
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After trimming the eggplants, you brown them in olive oil.
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The filling cooks while the eggplants cool.
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After baking: more parsley is added to the dish.
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The Turkish cookbook we used today.
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Making Turkish Pide
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Shaping the flatbread.
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It bakes on the baking stone in the oven.
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A really delicious bread!
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Our dinner: eggplant, flatbread, and a garnish of tomatoes, basil, and cheese.
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Oh, and what about the Imam? Why did he faint? Some stories say the dish was so delicious it made him faint. Some say he was shocked because his olive oil supply was depleted by the lavish amounts used in the recipe. It's all a myth. We may have tried this dish on one of our two visits to Istanbul, but I'm not sure. We certainly ate a number of stuffed vegetables, which are all characteristic of Turkish cooking.
Blog post and photos © 2020 mae sander.
15 comments:
The pide looks really good..just like those I saw in our local Turkish bakery.
I've had food so delicious that it's made me nearly faint! ;) The bread looks really yummy! :)
Rain (www.rainfrances.com)
That looks delicious. I love eggplant but I am violently allergic to it. The last time I tempted fate and ate is was definitely the LAST time.
How fun to try new dishes. Looks delicious
It all looks delicious. I've never gotten the hang of cooking eggplant, but I always enjoy eating it.
The flat bread looks fantastic and perfect for your dish. If we get to Istanbul in December I will try this there.
We love Pide at our house! But we usually get it from our favorite Turkish restaurant, topped with cheese and spinach. Yum!
This does look yummy!
Looks delicious!
That looks delicious! Your bread looks so light.
You put together a delicious looking Turkish meal Mae. I'll have to look up the recipes. Maybe the Imam was allergic to eggplant?
Both the bread and the eggplant dish look delicious--a perfect dinner in my book.
John would turn his nose up at eggplant, although I love it.
I must look for a gluten free pide recipe!
Mae,
This is our kind of food! The recipe and the story are interesting, I don't remember this dish specifically when we spent time in Istanbul, but we did eat quite a bit of eggplant based dishes. I'm impressed with the bread as well.
I do enjoy eggplant in whatever form I can get! And your pide looks fabulous!
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